


Entanglement

by Castiel_For_King



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Pre-Slash, Spencer gets a little obsessed sometimes, mild Asperger's characteristics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiel_For_King/pseuds/Castiel_For_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a mind as vast and fathomless as Spencer Reid's, it was no surprise that the genius sometimes got a little lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entanglement

Spencer rubbed the tips of his fingers over his chin, eyes burning as he stared at the three white boards propped up by various pieces of furniture.  He was pretty certain he hadn't slept in at least fifty some hours but he was simply too absorbed and too curious to not spend every second of his time thinking about... _this_.

It had been a while since he'd found himself so obsessed. It happened every now and then; something would catch his interest and then within anywhere from a few hours to a few days it consumed him. There was that year he spent reading and collecting every scrap of information he could find about combustion engines. And then a stretch of about eight months where he'd devoured every book and article that had to do with the black plague. He'd spent several months obsessively memorizing every constellation in the sky, their positions depending on the time of year, the name of each star and their distance from the earth...

Just to name a few.

His eyes shifted to the second board, where a daisy chain of quantum equations were crammed into every available space on the board in his messy, excited scrawl. He followed the mathematical path from the start of the idea through to the point where he was now, searching for just the right way to explain or disprove the idea he happened to be chasing this time.

He was just grateful that the team had been given a week off to relax after their last – horrific – case. Trying to concentrate at work in the budding stages of a new interest was incredibly frustrating and uncomfortable.  But he had been several days without sleep now and he could feel the gears in his brain jamming up. It was a distressing feeling; he was staring at the scribbles – he'd written them himself hours ago – but the information just wasn’t going in anymore.

He rubbed at his eyes roughly, frustrated by the limitations set by his own body. If only there was a way to stay awake indefinitely without getting seriously ill...or going crazy.

A sharp pain in his stomach reminded him that it had likely been a while since he'd eaten as well and Spencer turned his back on the boards, heading for the kitchen. As he walked the short distance his eye caught the blurred patterned of orange street lights streaming through the window over the sink and casting a distorted shadow on the front of the refrigerator.

His hand stilled on the handle of the door, eyes tracing the pattern of dark and light bands across the white surface. The interference pattern from where the window was divided was a perfect example of what had started him down the path of his latest obsession.

The facts surrounding the double slit experiment and it's subsequent reproduction with atoms flashed through his sleep deprived brain in a jumble and he frowned, glaring at one of the darker bands of light on the fridge. It had been this same pattern, which he'd noticed three days ago on the wall of the subway, that had gotten him thinking. From there, the simple idea had exploded, launching like a rocket deep into the underbelly of quantum superposition and entanglement theories.

After staring at the lines of light on the refrigerator for another ten minutes, Spencer finally managed to pull himself out of his head and tug the door open.  He sighed, eyes darting to each barren corner of the nearly empty appliance before he slammed the door closed again.

He shrugged to himself, it wasn't the first time he'd gone a few days without eating and it certainly would not be the last. He wasn't going to collapse this very second. He'd go get some food _later_.

To fend off the drowsiness of not eating or sleeping, Spencer went to his go-to fix all: Coffee.

Soon the wonderful smell of the bitter drink had filled his apartment and by the time it was done brewing, the smell was strong enough to get the young genius to turn away from his white boards once again.

When he had mixed his coffee and reclaimed his spot in front of the boards, clutching the mug to his chest and letting the rich aroma drift right up into his nostrils, Spencer already felt more energized. After his eyes traced the last of the equations, he felt a jolt of excitement strike him like lightning as everything slid right back into place in his head and the gears started turning smoothly again.

He'd just needed a little break, that was all. Now he had his coffee and could get right back to it.

His hands clutched around the mug convulsively and he chewed on his bottom lip, recalling the book of ghost stories he'd read last month.

Among other topics, the author had spent a significant amount of time discussing how he believed spirits and other paranormal occurrences could be explained with science. The man had had many ideas but it was evident that his interests had never strayed that far into the scientific world. But there had been one idea that he'd floated that had immediately caught Spencer's attention. He'd only been mildly intrigued...until he'd seen the light pattern on the wall of the subway a few days ago, and his brain had started connecting some dots.

Since then he'd spent nearly every minute of his time trying to figure out if some kind of connection could be made to what was currently known about paranormal happenings and the weird and wonderful world of quantum mechanics; namely how it could be related to entanglement theory.

He'd just picked up one of his markers again when there was a knock at his door.

A disgruntled whine escaped his throat and he glanced over at the door, seriously considering just ignoring it, the thought of stopping _now_ quite upsetting.

He turned back to the middle board and uncapped the marker, his brow smoothing as he began to write out Shrodinger's equation, unsure of why he hadn't yet done so. He must be more tired than he'd thought.

He shook his head a little at his own carelessness and dug the scrap of paper out of his jeans pocket that he'd written on two days ago in a coffee induced high and glanced down at it, figuring in the values he'd found for the carbon particle electron into the equation. He wasn't entirely sure how finding the wavefunction of this particular particle would help him link paranormal activity to real world science but one had to start somewhere.

Before he'd even finished writing the base equation, the knock on his door sounded again, this time much louder.  His face crumbled into a scowl and he clutched the marker in his hand, ready to yell through the door for whoever it was to go the fuck away, but then someone beat him to it.

“Reid?”

It was Morgan, of all people. God, they'd only been away from the office for three days. He wondered if Morgan had ever considered if his constant need to be around people might be unhealthy.

“Reid, I know you're in there man, open up!”

Spencer sighed and prayed for patience, walking to the door and wrenching it open.

“What?” He snapped before he'd even fully opened the door, getting right to the point. The sooner Morgan said whatever he'd come to say the sooner Spencer could politely decline whatever social outing the man wanted him to attend and the sooner he could get back to the intriguing problems that were currently taking up most of his living room.

“Oh...hey guys.” Spencer blinked, feeling blindsided when he saw that Morgan was not alone and standing just behind him were Rossi and Hotch.

They were all dressed casually, clearly either on their way _to_ or their way _back_ from a social outing and it made Spencer realize that he had no idea what time it was. It was dark outside so it was somewhere between 8PM and 5AM -  a pretty big window.

He focused back on the facial expressions of his coworkers and realized they were all wearing identical looks of concern but Morgan was the one to speak.

“Reid, you ok, man?”

“Of course.” he reassured, mind already conjuring up the white boards in his head even as he stared at the three men before him.

He wondered if he was just wasting his time with Shrodinger's equation and should move on or if he should do it just in case something came of it. On the one hand he might waste time on it just to figure out it didn't help at all but on the other hand he'd at least be able to move on to other options knowing he hadn't missed anything important.

“Reid!”

He blinked and brought his gaze back over to Morgan's face, wincing when he realized they'd been talking to him while he zoned out. Rude.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said I've been trying to call you for days!” Morgan snapped, looking annoyed. “I was worried you were dead or something!”

Spencer stared at the older man incredulously, not sure if he was being serious or not. A quick glance behind him to Rossi and Hotch's grim expression told him that yes, Morgan was serious.

“We've only been on break for like three days, Morgan.” He said, feeling more and more confused when he saw all three mens' frowns deepen further.

“Try _five_ days.” The taller man said at length, his voice once again calm but heavily tinged with concern.

Spencer felt his stomach drop. “Five days?” He looked between their faces. “No way.” He wracked his brain but the last...bit of time really just registered as one long stretch of space where he wasn't at work.

“When was the last time you slept?” Hotch asked him abruptly.

Spencer stared. “I...don't...uh...”

Morgan suddenly came forward, crowding him back into his apartment. “Step aside, Pretty Boy.” He said firmly.

“Wha – hey!” He cried indignantly, watching as the three men barged into his home.

They all stopped a few feet in, their keen profiler eyes snapping this way and that, taking in every detail and analyzing it in a flash.

“Excuse me!” He called to them, annoyance making his stomach squirm when he was ignored. “What the hell are you guys even doing here?” He was gesturing wildly, the uncapped marker still in his hand. “We're supposed to be taking time off! _Away_ from each other!” They continued to ignore him and he watched with rising frustration as Rossi plucked a book off the pile on the couch and examined it curiously.

He strode forward and snatched it out of the older man's hands, “Don't touch that. Hey!” He pulled the crumpled piece of scrap paper with the Shrodinger values on it from Hotch hands and slapped Morgan's hand away from one of his white boards and then pushed at the dark skinned agent. “Come on, that's enough – Rossi _put that down_!”

“What have you been doing for the last five days, Reid?” Morgan asked, his head still swivelling like a top as if he meant to memorize every detail of the room.

He knew the question was probably rhetorical but with an angry sigh through his nose, Spencer launched into an explanation, purposefully using big words that he knew Morgan wouldn't understand to make him feel stupid.

“It involves application of the theory of quantum entanglement and superposition in an effort to make a connection between scientific laws and spiritual phenomena and I swear to god if you mess up those equations I will castrate you.” He hissed at the end when he saw Morgan uncapping one of the markers curiously.

“Reid.” Hotch said sternly, drawing the young genius' gaze. “You need to stop and rest.” His dark eyes flicked downward and then back up. “And eat.”

He scoffed before he could stop himself. “Stop?” He parroted, not really understanding. “I can't _stop_ Hotch, I have to figure this out or it's going to drive me crazy. I can't just _stop_ and not _know_.” God, that was literally the stupidest thing he'd ever heard the man say.  He held his arms out to his sides in a gesture meant to encompass all three men. “Now, if you don't mind, that wave function isn't going to find itself, so...”

None of them moved, simply stared at the genius.

 

* * *

 

Morgan looked around Reid's apartment in a slight state of shock. The place, while never truly well organized, now looked like a tornado had ripped through it. The first thing any normal person would notice was that there were books piled on every available surface – including the floor – some towering in unstable looking columns, some opened to specific pages and gathered in a pile, some sitting by themselves like the genius had just set the book down absently wherever.

There was a pillow on the sofa and a rumpled comforter in the middle of the living room floor and Morgan could easily see Reid wandering around his apartment in the middle of the night when it got cold, the blanket draped around his shoulders like a cape, and then discarding it where he stood, absorbed in whatever fancy had taken him.

Cups. There were cups everywhere as well. Sitting on top of books, on the floor, three on top of the tv and Derek figured that thirst was likely the only thing the genius wasn't able to ignore.

In one corner of the open concept apartment there where at least a dozen glass balls of varying sizes hanging from strings pinned to the ceiling, under which sat a small and very dusty television that clearly hadn't been turned on in years. There was a fairly large glass fish tank sitting on the windowsill, but instead of water and fish it was full of what looked like moss and some other strange looking plants.

There was a very old, very expensive looking vase sitting in the middle of the coffee table, standing amongst a swamp of books, out of which Derek could see a handful of plain white storm candles, several pens and pencils and a single, dried flower sticking up.

The guy himself looked pretty rough. His skin was paler than normal, the circles around his eyes had darkened and when Derek looked closely he could see the genius' pupils were mere pin pricks and his slender hands were trembling.

“Reid, you have to stop and rest” Hotch said, the concern in his voice barely concealed.

The younger man responded with a string of biting words, clearly irritated and agitated enough to snap at his boss.

Derek had seen this behaviour in the young genius before, though not to this extent. Reid had a tendency to get caught up in his head sometimes but it was easy to overlook when they were at work or on a case. But when it was something outside their every day occurrences, it was easy to spot the difference in Reid's level of interest in a strange topic versus someone else'.

It wasn't normal for someone to not sleep or eat and lose track of whole days. It wasn't normal for someone to become so enamored with one subject that they forgot to take care of themselves. But then, as Derek recalled the young genius sheepishly admitting to him once, “ _I'm not exactly what you'd call neurotypical, Morgan._ ” He hadn't known what that word meant, and it had led to an informative and eye opening Google search-fest later.

“Ok.” he said gently as he turned his back on Reid to face Hotch and Rossi. “Why don't you guys go to that...whatever it was you were dragging me along to, huh?” He slipped his arm around Rossi's suit clad shoulders. “Smoke cigars, drink scotch out of crystal tumblers.” He walked the man to Reid's front door, ignoring the sidelong look the Italian was giving him. “And _I'll_ take care of the sleep deprived genius.”

“Hey!” snapped the genius.

Hotch had followed them to the door and placed a large hand on Rossi's shoulder, pushing him the rest of the way out into the hall. The eldest agent would be the very dead last to admit it but he was no more immune to the overprotective urges than the rest of them where it concerned Spencer Reid.  With one last glance behind him at their youngest agent – who was still standing by his white boards with his arms crossed and a glower on his face – Rossi gave Morgan a short nod and he and Hotch left.

“Make sure he sleeps.” the Unit Chief muttered as Morgan closed the door.

“I heard that!” yelled Spencer, his voice carrying through the walls.

In the silence that followed, Derek turned and crossed his arms, fixing Reid with his strongest, no-nonsense expression and an order to go to bed on the tip of his tongue. Unfortunately Spencer seemed quite far from being intimidated, and a counter-expression of pure, stubborn resistance overtook his soft features, big brown eyes narrowing dangerously, and the younger man shifted in front of his boards – a subconscious movement – as if to protect them from Derek's ill intentions.

“Reid -”

“No.”

“ _Reid_ -”

This time Spencer merely rolled his eyes and turned back to his equations, shoulder's a rigid line.

Derek realized he had to change out his approach and internally sighed, letting his muscles and posture relax into something much less threatening. He should have known better, really, Spencer never responded well to force; stubborn, brilliant, jerk that he was.

“Ok, look,” he reached around Spencer's arm and plucked the marker out of his slender fingers, ignoring the glare it earned him. “”I get that you're on a roll here.” He glanced over at the mathematical jargon that made about as much sense to him as hieroglyphics. “But we have to be back at work the day after tomorrow and if you don't sleep and we get called on a case, not only will you be endangering yourself but you'll be endangering the team as well if you're not on your game.”

The hard set to Spencer's shoulders started to slump more the longer Derek spoke until finally the smaller man sighed and all the tension seemed to leave on the wave of his breath.

“Yeah...you're right.”

Derek smirked, “Ohh, say it again, Pretty Boy.”

Two spots of red appeared high on Reid's cheeks but the genius managed a weak glare, though his diamond shaped lips twitched, snagging Derek's attention.  

"I _am_ kind of tired."  Spencer admitted, glancing over at the white boards again, but this time his gaze held little interest, eyelids drooping like a spell had been broken.  "Alright fine, I'll go to bed - but _don't_ touch those boards."  he added at the end, pointing one skinny finger at Morgan.

"Promise."  Though he was going to tidy up a bit, maybe stack all the books in one place at least, and put all the empty glasses in the dishwasher.  "Go to bed.  I'll chill for a bit."

Derek watched Spencer's lips curve into a soft, gentle smile...and _kept_ watching as the young genius turned and retreated to his bedroom, unable to take his eyes off the messy brown locks and the shift of the thin white t-shirt over lightly defined back muscles...

He gave himself a shake and turned to tackle the mess on the coffee table first, a grin stretching his lips.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Pretty tame little one shot, I know, but there really aren't enough fics out there that focus on Reid and his big, awesome, genius mind.  

Also, if any of you are interested, (make sure to open these in a new window) [here is a link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) that explains the double slit experiment...it's incredible, really.  And if you want some hard copy reading suggestions, the two books that sparked the idea for this fic were [Quantum ](http://www.amazon.ca/Quantum-Perplexed-Dr-Jim-Al-Khalili/dp/1841882380)by Jim Al-Khalili (an amazing book if you can get past the mild pretension that comes through in his writing - which I did and I've read it three times now).  The other book where the author mentions his interest in the possibility of paranormal phenomenon being explained by science is [here ](http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Spirit-World-Hauntings-Visitations/dp/1782122788) ...but it's really Quantum, which introduced to me that theory of entanglement that sparked the idea that maybe all this shit can be linked together somehow...sadly, I lack the education necessary to really explore the idea.

Anyway...let me know what you thought of the fic...just a one shot for now but might continue it later. :)

 

 

 


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